Storyline
Storyline updates on a rough monthly schedule. Chapter 1 - 10/10/2019 The first month of school was a light note of things to come. Classes were mostly introductory, little studying given whatsoever so that students could spend these first thirty days adjusting to their new environment and moving in. Supplies bought, books ordered, and uniforms pressed, the school year has now officially begun. Classes are to begin their real lessons, and students are expected to buckle down and begin getting ready for the harder year ahead. There are whispers, rumors, that a student has recently gone missing. Faculty have told students this is being looked into and there is nothing to be frightened of, but to let them know if they have any information on the missing student, and that withholding information is against the rules. Chapter 2 - 10/19/2019 .wake Two months have passed since the start of the school year, and the students have now found themselves falling into a routine. These children of tense nation rivalries and victims of strict parental expectations now have a temporary break from their home lives, and are becoming more adjusted to life here at the academy. Tests, blossoming romances, fights, training, studying, pranks, mealtimes, all of the cherished luxuries of young adulthood. There was rumor, between the turned pages within study sessions at the library and exchanged alongside plates at dinner, of students going missing. But of course in a facility like this, with renowned knights and all nation’s eyes on it, how could students just go missing? It was just a scary tale that older students told the younger ones to keep them up at night. Right? Yet when walking alone through the halls, there is a perpetual feeling that you are being watched. Like something is waiting to grab you out from the shadows. Or maybe you don’t care, you’re brave, you *dare* something to even try such a thing. Bravery makes for daring leaders, of which you will be one day. And as you think this, you swear the shadows slither back. Or perhaps, you are simply blind to your own bravado, and it is the light seeping in that you do not see. Dreams (House Leads, Oracles) As October reaches it’s final weeks, and the orange and yellow leaves begin to drift in dry, chill winds threatening a storm coming, 8 students find the storm before it arrives. Asleep, they simply find themselves pulled deep into their minds. Awake, they tumble to the ground, stomach turning, head pounding, heart twisting, lungs heaving….pain...it hurts….. ...as the unconsciousness settles it, the pain subsides into colors and sensations. A dream. Fall ::You dream of wreaths of flowers, blinding you. All you can see are endless blurs of autumn colors, yet it feels as if thorns twist and turn within your brain. You reach out, you know there is *something* beyond, a tree, it calls to you and *beats* with a desire you can only feel as intense and *wanting*. It calls for you, yet you can’t see. Spring ::The sun is nearly, and yet not unwelcome. It burns, yet not your skin, rather it feels as if it burns straight through you and grips at your heart. Around you is an endless field, grass and flowers as far as the eye can see. No matter how much you run, it seems to never end, the horizon curving in taunting chase away from you infinitely. Yet you know, *you know* that there is something just beyond, something grounding, something decaying, something lusting for the growth that aches to burst from your chest. You have to reach it, you must keep running. Winter ::Snow. White, visually stinging winter chill all around you. Your skin stings with each microscopic snowflake to land upon it, Yet despite the frigid nipping and the blistering snowstorm around you, somehow you are able to realize one coherent thought - you are standing on ice. One singular spot, that seems to perfectly shape in a radius around you. A thought crosses your mind, that perhaps you are the warmth of winter. And something is below the ice. Before you know it, you are clawing, running out of breath as you work and tear at the ice, but you have to break in, you have to get to what’s below. Summer ::Snow. White, visually stinging winter chill all around you. Your skin stings with each microscopic snowflake to land upon it, Yet despite the frigid nipping and the blistering snowstorm around you, somehow you are able to realize one coherent thought - you are standing on ice. One singular spot, that seems to perfectly shape in a radius around you. A thought crosses your mind, that perhaps you are the warmth of winter. And something is below the ice. Before you know it, you are clawing, running out of breath as you work and tear at the ice, but you have to break in, you have to get to what’s below. House leaders will have this dream on repeat for nights following, always mute, always dull, always difficult to remember, yet always so crushing. Oracles will have this dream this one time, but they feel a pull. something is in the school. you don't know what makes you think this strange, abstract though, but there is something and you need it. you cannot breathe, you cannot see, you cannot walk, you cannot fight without it. you must find it. it calls to you. it begs to be a part of you again. and as you wake up, eyes shooting open at the ceiling above, you are struck with one clear voice, a voice you know has followed you through life, and yet now rings out inbetween your state of sleep and wake for one request: Find. the stone. Chapter 3 - 11/05/2019 When the school year began, it was upon the mysterious vanishing of a student by the name of Amaranth Talreine. Due to sporadic behavior, this disappearance was dismissed as a simple run away...There has yet to be anything found on this disappearance... .vision As Fall begins to trail on, Winter dancing upon snowflakes on the chill topped hills beyond the horizon, the students find themselves buried into schoolwork. Tests are threatening, impending even, to close in by months end, and classes begin to tighten, rigorous and constricting as the faculty attempts to hone in on each individual student’s talents. Specialty classes have begun, students from all houses now being mingled in both their house divides as well as their personal skills, to truly sharpen the futures of each and every chair of the future. Yet as the students, warm and safe within the walls of the academy, continue their educationally mundane structure of everyday life, rumors in nearby towns speak of a threat. Of shadowy beasts that roam through the forests at night and steal away those who separate themselves beneath the moon from their human pack. The rumors have grown from whispers to hums to buzzes, shaking the vendors at the school marketplace to pass these vibrations onto the students, who in turn, spread it between exchanged test notes in class. “Did you hear, back in Fallsend a giant wolf-” “I heard that over in Springstow, there was this huuuuuge eagle, and it-” Suddenly, sleep is grasped with the most minute bit of desperation, the veils of dreams hiding students from the realities beyond their walls. Though dreams do not fall as blankets of shielding for all. And it is only fair that as future leaders, the monastery’s trainee students apply their newfound battle knowledge to practice and aide the unsettled thoughts of nearby towns. Prepare yourselves, for at the end of the month, you will be proving just how valuable your training has been. Dreams (Oracles) Fall ::Leaves. It is your season. You cannot see them, but you can feel the crisp touch of crinkly leaves against your outstretched hands. They crumble to dust when you close your palms, fingers smoothing against the grains of leftover flora that you’re sure, if you could see, stains your palms with saturated yellows and oranges. The colors flash in your mind, and yet you still, no matter how hard you try, cannot see them. All you see is darkness, a pitch black that would suffocate if it wasn’t for the wind that gloats past your nose. There is the reminiscent sound of beating in your ears, and it feels as if each shard of leaf in your hands is alive, a being of it’s own existence rather than one of a whole. The wind picks up, and you feel as if it is leading you somewhere. But where? Your feet can only carry so quickly in the mounds of fallen leaves beneath you, and without the ability to see, you can only roughly guess where to go. But each step falls in unison with the thump of a heartbeat screaming in your ears, becoming more and more deafening with each step. You simply know one fact that squeezes around your brain: you have to find your heart. Spring ::…. but you can see, and it’s beautiful. A striking display of pinks, whites, blues, greens…….. so many vibrant colors and scents that tickle your nose and your eyes alike. Flowers flourish as far as the eye can see, and you can’t help but feel a smile pull at your cheeks through the sunlight streaming across your face, skipping streams across the gently swaying flowers as you admire the expansive view. A hummingbird flitters by, pausing momentarily in front of your face to sporadically flit to and fro, left and right, and then finally off into the distance just as you reach out a hand as if instinctively to touch it. The lavender feathers disappear, but you eye the distance with a curiosity new to you. Your chest, suddenly, has a hollowness, yet it feels as if your entire body pulses with what should rightfully be within. As if a piece of you has been ripped away, dangled somehow both close in front of you and far away from you at the same time. And as your hand, outstretched towards the horizon, closes in on a single leaf, you pause, bringing it slowly to your face to inspect the small object. A bright orange, a color foreign to this land, and before you can second guess it, the wind whisks it away once more. Yet there is an inclination to follow this warm object, a warmth you have only just now known, something missing, something far off………. perhaps there you’ll find it. Winter ::You do very much wish that the bitter chill of the blinding snow was simply visual, and didn’t cradle your chest and make it so, so difficult to breathe. Yet every inhale feels of daggers, of ice in small pieces that shreds you within, melting only upon reaching your chest and forming against in cold spheres deep within your abdomen. What you wouldn’t give simply for a fire, for clothing, for any sort of warmth in this barren, lonely landscape. The storm twists around you, mocking this desire with blinding accuracy, and shields your vision from any hope of exist and escape from this hell. Yet it won’t kill you, that much is clear. It feels as if this cold has permeated through you your entire life, and yet the weight is so much to bare. So. So much to bare. Your back gives out, and what you wouldn’t do for a single meal over a fire. A stew or a well cooked steak would do, and yet the thought of hunger pulls you down even more, feet sinking into the snow as you find your hands tugged down only moments after. Down. Pressure. Warmth. Maybe then you can breathe, maybe once you can find cover, full embodying cover, you can breathe once more. Summer ::There is nothing you would not give to move. To feed. To be able to hunt. The emptiness all around you is both foreboding and home all at once, as is the pit that devours itself in your stomach and gnarls as the waves around you do to your flesh. As if you yourself are being consumed and digested, and it sickens you to think the very thought of that hungers you further. A deep, primal craving that twists both inside and out, the pressure of heavy depths tendrils around your limbs and puppeting your body back and forth with the currents. You are simply one with the water, victim to it’s whims and weight against its momentum. How you can breathe, you have never known. It has always been second nature, and yet in this second that new thought hits you: you can breathe. Yet you cannot move. Your chest is just as stationary as the rest of your body - is it even a body, or is it simply water as the rest of your surroundings happens to be - fails to move to your own whims. But for the first time, something pierces the darkness. That much you know. After so long of nothing but pitch black, there is something singular and new, a fresh glance of the split second of cold, blue light. And as soon as it’s there, it is gone, but you continue to float back with the tides, and close your eyes. Hope. Just a small, dry bit of hope that one day, out of the water, you can move once more. Oracles - 12/03/2019 You feel hands come from behind you, there is a prick in your back, the world spins, and slowly as you hit the floor, it fades to black. All four of you awaken in a mysterious dungeon. Get out. Missing Students List: Lyle Vikhaven - 12/04/2019 Chapter 4 - 12/04/2019 Missing Students Board: Amaranth Talreine, Lyle Vikhaven With the arrival of new people to campus, tensions between the Church and the Cult of the Depths rise. Since the night of the Oracles going missing, the Cult has begun to kick up activity, and the Church finds itself arming and guarding itself as a third player begins to enter this game being played in the whispers and shadows of the monastery. Lacrima, an organization only some have heard of in alleyway whispers or the back of horrific nightmares, snakes it's way to Concordia Monastery, it's desires still unknown. This three player game runs between the cheerful smiles of passerbys between classes, above the tranquil dreaming nights of students in this snow storm filled winter, and through each and every hall traversed by the unknowing. Dreams (House Leads) Fall ::Tufts of fur tickled your eyelids as you attempted to pry your eyes apart to no avail. As if an instinctual fear that clenched your heart, coiling around them and their squeezing tight. Blood rushing to your brain and the walls of your mind scape were banged upon. With lashes refusing to budge and the squelching feeling of rotting flesh beneath your fingertips. Slipping and tumbling into layers of skin and bone. The back of their head colliding with the ground as the chime of voices rang in your head. Urging, clear, and hungry. Till the voices merged with chortling, a laughter filled with mockery and grief. There was no reason they should be laughing as they gnawed on your bones, chewed on your throat, and lapped at the blood. The crunch of leaves beneath their limbs, the drumming of the mind screaming to withhold. The hunt begins and you are the prey. Spring ::They stared at the open sky and the plumes of petals above them. It sat serenely, its roots gripped around your chest. Feeling your life consumed by the grand bouquet of feathers that engulfed you. The ache in your chest was the only reminder that you had been alive. It crooned with delight as your hands feebly pounded against the earth. The plains were plentiful with the fruit it bore and the offshoots of flora but even they shied away from the touch of this draining figment that chipped away at you. It laid its leaves around you, the curves woven around your neck. Perhaps this would remind fertilizer of its place. Winter ::The frost nipped at your skin again. A territorial growl rumbled in you like trapped beneath a thin layer of ice. The beast obscured by snow and ice who lorded its hefty form over you. You are weak. You cannot hope to win. Air withdrew from your lungs but none came back in as its maw buried into your skin. This feeling of disassemblement as it stripped you of skin, muscle tissue, and bone. There was no such thing as a forgiving world as the ice encased your eyes, glazing them over like a lake in a winter's night. There it was, that sensation as the beast tugged you away, the remains of your conscience dragged from your still corpse. The unfamiliarity of identity and being. You do not need it. Summer ::The ocean lied in your belly, the life held within you clawed away begging to be set free as you sank into the abyss. Your eyes anchored downwards at a mass of starvation, a hungering beast that spread and wrapped its many arms around you. Bringing you closer to its dancing void, you were a world dipped in grace and animation. It was a distortment of destruction with its thirsts for entropy left unquenched. Its wiggling mass, languidly slipping through this barren sea. It would consume you and all that you are. Consume you and everything you stand for. It is useless to hope you can win, A meal cannot escape the inevitability of its ingestion. Dreams (Oracles) One singular dream is shared: ::It all feels different somehow. Typically in these dreams there is an awareness of self. That you, despite whatever surreal happenings occur, there is a center of being. And yet now you are not that same self, and you look down at your hands, the size of the gently swaying trees nearby, and turn them over to examine your near translucent skin and the gentle veins, pale blue streams of their own, that decorate and dance beneath your frosty tipped skin. Lower...........they lower, down to your legs folded oh so neatly against frost crisped grass, and you look out across this scene, familiar, and yet somehow ancient and foreign all at once. Skies of blue with clouds below you, and a smile crosses your face. Winter. You remember it's winter, and the clouds that stretch beneath the mountaintop you know bring storms below. Yet up here, all feels tranquil, and you can't but help to feel joy as you rest a hand into the cold frost beneath you. Upon moving it aside, dirt lightly scrapes the light diaphanous tone of your skin, marking it with a gentle earthy brown as you stare down at the messed soil beneath your palm. The sight of sprouts beginning to bloom brings an undefinable joy to your heart, and you gently scoop a flower that has blossomed in your touch and hold it close, breathing in the scent. Winter was a sleepy chill, but soon spring would come, and you would bring it so. As December approaches, the school is alive and vibrating with the energy of holiday events to come. Festivals! Dances! Gifts! No tests and no missions! This month is bound to be a social bundle of festivities and fun, going into the new year, what more could the students hope for. Dreams (House Leads) Fall: The howl of autumn winds, the croon of falls descent upon this world. Life pulsates and depletes at your fingertips, the thrall and pumping of blood thudding in your ear drums. The chime of the clock and the ticking of time, Sands fall through the hourglass without halting. The eternal demise is inevitable, the judgement of your sins are second to none. You feel what once gnawed on your bones ingrain itself in your existence. What once caused the rot of your flesh became the rotting of others. Life as you know it is constantly ending. It is constantly accumulating in senselessness, You feel a pain sear itself into your eye as you claw at it relentlessly for salvation. One that will never come. Your eyes see sin, the mark of justice. Now see with your own irises is there liberation? Mord Log - (12/06/2019) Chapter 5 - 10/01/2020 Tensions have risen through the last several weeks, from the kidnappings, to break ins, to the solidification of battle training and rivalries occurring. The school is investigating the rumors of someone named Leviathan, and have stated they are to blame for the kidnappings and are now at large to be captured for this. Guard activity in the school has increased in response to this, and the mysteries of the monastery continue to deepen as Archbishop Last finds himself blindsided by secrets of the school. With the aide of several students, and his handful of faculty, there are high hopes of discovering further secrets within the school, and restore faith within and towards the church. Chapels and classes will continue, with Classes now beginning to lock down on their lessons. There is rumor of another mission at the end of the month, and the students begin their preparations... Dreams (House Leads) Fall ::The howl of autumn winds, the croon of falls descent upon this world. Life pulsates and depletes at your fingertips, the thrall and pumping of blood thudding in your ear drums. The chime of the clock and the ticking of time, Sands fall through the hourglass without halting. The eternal demise is inevitable, the judgement of your sins are second to none. You feel what once gnawed on your bones ingrain itself in your existence. What once caused the rot of your flesh became the rotting of others. Life as you know it is constantly ending. It is constantly accumulating in senselessness, You feel a pain sear itself into your eye as you claw at it relentlessly for salvation. One that will never come. Your eyes see sin, the mark of justice. Now see with your own irises is there liberation? Spring :: The boughs sing, they cry, and relentlessly never stop their sound. The flowers laugh at your feet, the fungi weep, you bury the seed of your life into the soil as you feel you lose it all. Life both meaningful and not clamors the length of your person as it begs you for value discernable. Pain shoots through the fortress of skin and bone as its sprout breaks through the surface. Life is tangible, possibility is more as you let the melody and man carry you away. Step into the garden of which you came from. Where your feet still hope to tread. Deformity, consumption, let the roots overtake you, the leaves forsake you, and replace the keratin with thorn. The fury of withering, the eventuality of growth, it pertains you. You feel vines wrap around your chest, entrenching the space between your ribcage and heart. Do you yearn yet to rejoin the soil? Winter :: The tundra is all that you are, the froth of the spirits chime and overflows within you. Their tune is a band of frictionless ice as you tumble into the frozen lake. You know yourself as you are, apart of the cold. A piece of the freezing but your blood is searing, it yearns for the surface as it empties from the crevice of your chest. It bubbles and it pillages for the warmth of its home. It searches, it cries, it weeps, all in your body or all as you. Claw at the waters, latch onto ice, it will not save you, but the inclination pervades through you. Persevere, preserve, and protect. Like a dragon of its hoard as you curl around those of your community. Provided that you stay sane that is. Summer :: Flooding through your veins, the torrent of thoughts ran against the shores of your mind in relentless repetition. It pounds, it devours, it hungers so relentlessly in the pits of your stomach. Its calling with a light aglow like an anglerfish. Kindness is something it does not know, destruction and self preservation is all it wants. To drag men from the calm of the shore to drown in the blood of thine enemy, thine brother, and thine lover. It is instinct that insists to wrap its maw around your mind, the squeal of muscle tearing through your back. A scar is engraved into your body. You cannot escape the urge to hunt, just as it hunted you. You turn your gaze to those around you. Do you crave? Oracles The world lies at your fingertips, its future for the taking. Your feet trample the nothingness that lay beneath your feet. The tide at your feet, the perishing willow. The mull and lapse of men who bow before you. Do you remember what it was like to be of grandeur. To mold soil in between your palms and from its frugality to create grandeur. Your soul calls to one each other, the urge to touch, to bond, you will remember it well. Walk into the light. Stare into our eyes and remember who you are as the divine. Let the light consume you whole. We are one. Chapter 6 - 4/2/421 Solstice academy at night: studious or in silent prayer. Some in circles of friends in the courtyards, passing daisy chains under the late moon. One passes the chain to another to complete, when the moonlight seems to grow dim. One looks up, expecting normal oceanic clouds to be rolling in for the late night- -and then pauses in utter horror. ''"A-Aldrige, I don't think that's-" '' From within the academy, there are screams abruptly that then fall still almost immediately. But the world shakes, and students kick from their beds, from their dinners, from their studying spots, or their prayers in the monastery in confusion. An Earthquake? Why won't it stop. It continues on, and one students runs to the window to see the dark fog rolling in from the distance. But the emergency bells that begin to toll reaffirm the fact this is no ordinary fog. It's moving in individual movements. : ''There were thousands of them. Faster than the guards could even be deployed. '' Screams, the building shakes. There is a fluffy of activity, everyone screaming and sprinting from their rooms in a panic. : ''Not even the guards were prepared for an onslaught of such size. No one had seen so many before. '' Inhumane screeches and moans come from the skies above, and the ocean's fog releases it's attack on the unsuspecting monastery. : ''No one. Had Ever. Seen so many Demonic Beasts in one place. '' How much time was passing? It was all a blur as they shoved past one another. Some stayed back to help. Then the first strikes hit. A laser from the sky of fire and dark energy that screamed through the night air, slicing through a hallway as if it was an intangible object. : ''It was hellfire, it was the end. '' Within minutes, ten percent of the student body was no more. And the number only continued to climb. The students panic as they see their friends, their year's companions suddenly disintegrate or disappear beneath rubble. We thought we would surely all die Meanwhile, at Concordia The students, a strangely insomniac student body, are going about their nights per usual. That's when the first bell tolls. Perhaps someone had snuck up in the tower and climbed into the mechanics and was messing with the bell, surely it was someone no one would put past the students. Then came another toll. And another. And that's when the sirens began. One of the guards bursts into Last's office, pale, out of breath, ready to pass out on the spot. He delivers news that, by the time they have received this message, over a third of the Solstice academy population has been wiped out. And another attack was heading straight for Concordia. The Solstians were a peaceful school, one with only a small populous dedicated to fighting. They were sitting ducks in the middle of a target field. Alek and Leah are put in charge of the school, and Last and Mordecai take their leave to try and get to Solstice as quick as possible. Meanwhile the Concordians were never ones to back down from a fight or allow themselves to be victims. All students instead seized their hidden weapons, grabbed their tomes, sparked flames, or run to the armory to seize weapons and prepare to defend what had become their home, a hell it may be. They were determined to lose none of those they cared for, and were prepared to fight to the bitter end, tooth and nail. as the building crumbled in Solstice and students scrambled for their lives, and the Concordians slammed their weapons into the ground to hold their territory, it was clear what the moon above had become: Project: Lily A project known as Project: Lily has begun it's next phase. Ophelia Abbadon, Benedikt Von Vorbeck, and Noel Northcole have all been subdued under a potion with an ingredient known as the Goddess Tear, a mysterious concoction that can restore lost or suppressed memories. Each of these three fall unconscious upon ingestion, and find themselves locked away, or perhaps opened up to, memories long since sealed between the three. Meanwhile, in Sheol The revolution has officially turned the council's decisions, and Sycamore has been torn from his position on the council and replaced with a councilmen's son by the name of Chantara. This strange boy with his strange eyes falls into the same lockbox of memories as the other three house leaders, and will shortly be shipped to Concordia to overtake the Fall house as it's new House Leader. This young genius, a young man with seemingly endless intuition and intelligence towards others has been split down the public opinion, some claiming him as a rightful face and representative for Sheol, and others claiming the decision corrupt and manipulated. Dreams (House Leads) Fall :: SURVIVAL, Empathy, sympathy, compassion, care, let it leak from your body. Let it leave your soul if you still have one to spare. Bite the hand that feeds, turn your head to your allies and conquer them too for they will abandon you as you do them. Do not let a single one of them escape from your grasp, do not falter, do not let them even breathe, make them kneel for you are a soon-to-be king of the kingdom crafted in your mind. Your people have sacrificed you, your illusion has fallen. What havoc will you wreak, what vengeance will you enact? Remember the suffering they inflicted upon you. Do not let them leave alive. Spring :: SAFETY, The dark was strange, unfamiliar, it crept into you, it tore beauty from the garden of which you grew from. It darkened the vibrant soul laid within your body but even your suffering is glorious. The prickling of needles, the prodding of skin, and the gentle searing caress of isopropyl. This is my kindness to you, this is my love. Remember it well, Be thankful for what I give you. The reverence I imbue upon you is a gift. It validates your existence as you validate mine. Rise to the occasion, bring glory to your name. Remain safe so you can change this rotten world of ours. Winter :: ENDURE, Suffocate, buckle your knees and collapse under the pressure. The cold envelops you but the fire consumes you, the burning of your blood, the cry of your heart, tear it from your throat. The bucks run wild, the hunters come trodding. The pounding of your feet and slipping of the wool from your eyes. Learn the harsh reality, this world is cruel. You will not survive. Let your body provide for the worthy, let your sacrifice mean everything but you are a coward. With your own two hands, cause their suffering. Summer :: FIGHT, Clawing feebly at the walls, Tear the keratin from your hands and feast upon the flesh that you are fed. Rely on us, Know all that you are is weakness. All that you can be is small. You are nothing, In the grand scheme of this world. You mean nothing besides the bigger wheel that you spin. No matter how you struggle, no matter how you bare your teeth, you will suffer. You will understand what you are, A monster. A God. You are everything and more, Trembling under the weight of the boot that crushes you underfoot. So go on, go forth, usher yourself into the world. **Lose yourself because we will strip you of what you are. :: and one memory is shared A cell. Cold. Barred in. Animals to the cold looks of passing doctors. Three curled around each other in the corner, their white hair dirtied and matted from the weeks of lockup. The fourth had earned his place out of the group, attacking and clawing at several points until the three made it clear that they were in this together and would not hesitate to fight him back, through tears and fear. The largest boy sat, arms around both the girl and the other boy, shaking as the steps grew closer once more. "I hope it's you Chantara, you deserve it." The boy said nothing. After all, he too was only trying to survive. But what would they understand. Instead he just curled a smile, watching with gaze averted at the shadows of the scene against the cellar's stone floor. The shadow of a guard coming, going to seize the girl. An argument breaking out, the summer boy screaming and refusing to allow her to be touched, the winter boy dragging him back. And as it happened every day, the summer boy being dragged away to earn triple the punishment of the other's experiments. The sooner he died, the sooner the rebellion would stop, and perhaps they would be fed more often. Perhaps they would not be held in the cold. Their numbers, stamped onto either cheek, barely shone in the dim light. And as 1G and 4P huddled together for warmth once more, and 3U was dragged off, kicking and screaming, 2O simply stared unblinking at the shadows, pressing the memory into his mind and gripping it, refusing to ever let go. Because later, when he was abandoned, when 4P managed to sneak a key off a guard and drag the unconscious, spine torn, bloody body of 3U, and the emotional wreck of 1G out of the cell, 2O simply watched as their shadows left him, and could swear he saw the hint of disgust in their shade. Navigation